This week we’re going to talk about the ripple effect that gut related issues cause on your thyroid.
Last week I talked about the effect that lack of protein has on the liver and the adrenals.
As a quick refresher, when the liver doesn’t get protein, the adrenals kick in and try to get protein for the liver. The adrenals do this by releasing the stress hormone cortisol which breaks down muscle (protein). High levels of the stress hormone cortisol being pumped into your body is what inhibits the liver from converting T4 into T3 (making you hypothyroid) and it causes things like brittle nails, dry skin, hair falling off!!
I’m a bit jealous that it took me almost 4 years to figure this one out and you get to learn it on week 3!
… but I’m super excited because I know these modules coming up are going to make such a difference you’ll be glad you are taking action.
So anyway, the point I want to make clear was that lack of protein for the liver was NOT due to me not eating enough protein. I was eating a good amount of protein.
The REAL problem was that my gut was not digesting protein properly.
This is why when people ask me “what diet should I be on?”, my answer is that it doesn’t matter if you have gut related issues.
Before we can talk about diet (which we will soon and you should be documenting what you eat), we have to build a strong foundation by fixing your gut.
So here’s a quick primer on digestion.[/text_block]
Think of enzymes as the body “construction workers” that break nutrients apart and put them back together.
Think of every macro nutrient (carbohydrates, protein, fats) as chains. These chains need to be broken down into single links and put back together into chains.
So protein would be a chain and the job of enzymes is to break this chain down into single links which would be amino acids.
So follow along. I was eating more than enough protein, but my digestive system wasn’t putting out enough enzymes to break down that protein into amino acids.
Every protein in the body MUST be built by the body. Any protein NOT built by the body is considered an intruder and triggers an allergic reaction. The ripple effect of this is autoimmune diseases.
Since I was eating plenty of protein, what I needed to do was figure out how to break that protein down so my body could use it and to stop creating allergies in my body.
The first thing I thought of when I felt I was having digestive issues was “I need enzymes!!”[/text_block]
When I first started researching this I didn’t know or understand what you are learning today. Back then I was just looking for enzymes thinking that was going to solve my problems.
To digest proteins, I found the best protein enzymes come from papaya and pineapple.
Papaya has papain and pineapple has bromelain. Between these two, you can digest pretty much every protein out there including gluten.
Gluten is bad primarily because of it is extemely hard to digest. Think of it as a long chain. Longer chain than most proteins. Not only that, think of gluten as a thick chain, much thicker than other proteins.
That’s why gluten often goes undigested and undigested proteins are treated as foreign intruders in the body.
Undigested proteins will be broken down, flushed out of the system or they will be surrounded by mucus and create inflammation to protect the body.
If you are seeing mucus in your stool, then that’s what’s happening. Mucus in your stool means you have undigested proteins in your gut and it’s creating inflammation and allergic reactions.
These undigested proteins are not just from gluten, but pretty much all proteins if you don’t have the right enzymes to process them.
So, the short term solution is to just supplement with protein enzymes (pretty much every supplement gets their enzymes from pineapple and papaya which is much cheaper).
The long term solution is to understand that enzymes are released by bacteria in your gut flora.[/text_block]
What he meant was that our gut is just like the root of a plant. You don’t water a plant, you water the roots of the plant. You don’t feed the plant, you feed the roots of the plant.
The roots of the plant is where all the bacteria in the soil lives.
That’s why the health of the soil at the root of the plant determines the health of the plant.
If a leaf starts turning brown, the problem is not at the leaf, it’s at the root of the plant.
The body works the same exact way. The health of your gut determines the health of your body.
Our ultimate goal is to make sure our gut is healthy which is the strong foundation we need to build our body.
So here’s how it works.
Everything you “eat” is processed by some sort of bacteria. If there is a food you can’t process or causes an allergic reaction it’s because you don’t have the bacteria that releases the right enzymes to process it.
The example I’ll choose to describe this is going to be lactose. (Important because this relates to hypothyroidism in many ways as you’ll see)[/text_block]
Dairy products for hypothyroidism
Most people will agree that removing gluten and dairy products from their diet does wonders for their hypothyroidism.
The reason is because it removes proteins that are very hard to digest.
… but what if I told you that the right dairy products can actually speed up your well being???
I’m telling you this is high level information that took me years to find and understand so bare with me.
Let’s talk about why removing dairy products helps people with hypothyroidism short term, but hurts them long term.
As you may know, I have a background in home brewing. In the beer brewing world Louis Pasteur is regarded as a hero and genius because he discovered that the bacteria lactobacillus is what creates lactic acid and makes milk go sour. He also discovered yeast.
Prior to Louis pasteur discovering yeast, cultures believed that fermentation/beer was a gift from god and saw fermentation as “magical” for that reason because they didn’t know what caused things to ferment.
Once Louis Pasteur found these bacteria to be the cause he found how to eliminate these bacteria from dairy products. He found that high temperatures (boiling) kills these bacteria. This process became known as Pasteurization.
The only purpose Pasteurization served was to keep milk from going sour so that it would last longer.
Now here’s the problem, the bacteria that is found in milk is the same bacteria that releases the enzymes needed to digest the nutrients of milk like lactose and whey.
If you Pasteurize milk, you kill this bacteria which means that the only way you will be able to digest milk in your body is if your body has the bacteria that releases the enzymes that digests nutrients from milk. One of these enzymes is lactase which breaks down lactose and other.
Most people don’t have these enzymes so they can not break down the nutrients of milk and that’s why milk causes so much inflammation.
That’s why people with hypothyroidism tend to do well when they remove dairy products. Not because dairy products are bad, but because they don’t have the bacteria and therefore the enzymes needed to break down milk.[/text_block]
Raw dairy products fall in the same category. Most people if you tell them you are going to consume raw dairy products will think you are training for a case of salmonella or something.
… but hear me out.
If you have any kind of allergies to dairy products, the ONLY way to fix those allergies is by putting into your body the bacteria (good friendly bacteria that is) that processes the nutrients of dairy.
Raw milk has that bacteria which is why people who are lactose intolerant not only can they drink raw milk, but eliminate their lactose intolerance because they are adding that strain of bacteria into their gut flora.
The main lesson I’m trying to teach here is not getting you to consume raw dairy products, but to help you understand that your allergies come from lacking the bacteria needed to process undigested proteins in your body and from having the wrong type of bacteria that releases enzymes that attack the body (enzymes are proteins and if they come from bad bacteria they act just like undigested proteins)
One last thing before you are able to make a decision on whether to consume dairy products or not.
Pasteurization (high temperatures) denatures proteins and enzymes. It’s like changing a circle peg into a square. The proteins are still there, but now they are useless. These are the proteins that go undigested.
Some of these proteins are NEEDED for proper thyroid function.
One of these proteins is glutathione.
Glutathione is one of the proteins that the liver uses to convert T4 into T3.
Understanding that will allow you to decide whether or not to look into raw dairy products.
See, I can’t tell people what to do.
I can tell people that the reason I ate cholesterol was to produce hormones.
If you need hormones then you should look into cholesterol. If you don’t need hormones, then you may not need to look into cholesterol… but you now have a tool in your tool box because should you ever need hormones you know how to get your body to make them.
Raw dairy products are the same. I personally was struggling with T4 to T3 conversion so that’s why as much as I loved being raw vegan, I needed to consume dairy products to get glutathione to get my liver to convert T4 into T3.
Should you look into raw dairy products?
If you are having problems converting T4 into T3 then yes look into it.
If you are not having problems converting T4 into T3 then you may not need to worry about it, but now you have a tool in your toolbox.
My disclaimer is, I don’t recommend pasteurized dairy products.
I only recommend raw dairy products coming from grass fed organic animals if at all. (I don’t consume much, really just enough to fix my health)
Now you understand why people feel good when they remove dairy products, but also why dairy products are not the problem but rather the problem being that you don’t have the right bacteria in your gut.[/text_block]
I tried to keep this as simple as possible (gut flora 101), but the rabbit hole goes much deeper.
For now I just need you to understand that you have two problems when it comes to gut flora.
You have bad bacteria (if you have hypothyroidism, this is not a question, just trust me, you have bad bacteria), and you are missing various strains of good bacteria in your gut.
Next email newsletter we are going to start working on restructuring your gut flora and adding the beneficial bacteria you need, but first we must eliminate the bad bacteria from our body.
Remember, just like the health of the soil determines the health of the plant, the health of your gut determines the health of your body.
Before we introduce good bacteria to our gut, we must first start cleaning up house.
Bad bacteria lives in undigested foods that clog up your gut. As food goes through your digestive system, it starts to accumulate and stick to the gut wall. It’s like cooking. Imagine never cleaning your pots and pans after cooking, they’d be pretty gross right? well most people’s gut are just that gross and that’s why they have so many allergies and health problems.
What I used to clean up my gut was a product called oxypowder.[/text_block]
Here’s a review video I made a long time ago when I first started taking this product.
For next week, I want you to prepare and get probiotics.
Next week I’m going to start talking about how to restructure your gut flora, how to take probiotics and most importantly, I’m going to show you how to make your own probiotics so you don’t have to keep buying them!
I hope this process is easy enough to follow.
Juice fasting helps you clean your gut (it’s like a long term solution to clean instead of using oxypowder). That’s why I started you with this.
If you haven’t ordered your green juice, do it today so it gets here by the time the next newsletter is released. The probiotics I have my students take are made by the same company that makes the green juice I drink almost every day.
Here’s a video showing you how to get the green juice and probiotics.[/text_block]
